


Undeaded by Tea

by jocillyria



Series: Undeaded by Tea [1]
Category: Timeless (TV 2016)
Genre: Angst, F/M, I promise, It'll get lighter, Jessica Logan is Not a Rittenhouse Agent, Not Beta Read, Now Lucy knows how Jess feels, background Jess/Wyatt, background Jiya/Rufus, because apparently that's what I do now?, probably
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-14
Updated: 2018-06-26
Packaged: 2019-04-22 23:33:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 13,173
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14319501
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jocillyria/pseuds/jocillyria
Summary: Lucy, Rufus, and Wyatt return from the Boston Tea Party to find that Lucy was dead. She and Flynn have to talk.





	1. A Ghost

“There’s one less box of tea in Boston Harbor, but otherwise the party went more or less the same as it should have.” Had Lucy not been so focused on exiting the Lifeboat without face-planting (her stolen skirts were no joke), she might have noticed how the entire room stilled. Wyatt noticed, though, as he peered around her, waiting for her to clear the hatch.

“What’s wrong? They didn’t already jump _again_ , did they? Damn nuclear battery. Hey, Rufus, why don’t we have a nuclear battery?” Wyatt and Rufus snarked back and forth a bit about stealing nukes and treason as Lucy finally managed her way down the steps. She stopped in front of Flynn and presented him with her box (okay, not an entire box, those things were _big_ ) of tea straight from the Boston Tea Party. Her joking smile faded as she took in his expression.

“Why do you look like you’ve seen a ghost?” She looked around the room, taking in Agent Christopher’s, Mason’s, Jessica’s, and Jiya’s expressions in turn. “Oh.” Maybe they _had_ seen a ghost. “Am… Am I not alive this time?” She had no idea how that worked. Sure, they’d at points changed things drastically enough that people never existed (Amy), or hadn’t died (Jess), but was that the same as if she came into a timestream where she’d existed at one point but didn’t any longer? How did that even work? Whatever they (or Rittenhouse) did in Boston must have eventually led to her death here, but she was just coming from 1773 now, so… There’s the migraine she was expecting, accompanied by a mild panic attack that she might drop dead or fade away at any moment.

Flynn must have had the same worry, because he pulled her into his arms so tightly that she wasn’t altogether sure she’d be breathing for much longer. (And wasn’t that new in and of itself?) “Flynn,” she mumbled into his chest, “what happened?” Flynn pulled away from her. Well, he loosened his grip enough that they could look at each other, anyway. He didn’t seem to be able to speak, just moved his gaze over her face over and over again, as if as soon as he looked away she’d be gone, so he needed to memorize every inch right then. For all that he’d always been gentler (well, less gruff) with her than anyone else on the team, he’d never looked so… _vulnerable._

Wyatt made his way to Jess. “Seriously, what’s going on?” Jess was staring open-mouthed at Lucy, as well. The two women had gotten over the initial awkwardness that apparently goes hand-in-hand with a woman meeting her husband’s girlfriend from while she was dead (or her boyfriend’s no-longer-dead wife), and were maybe on their way to being actual friends before they’d jumped, but Jess was looking at her like her best friend had just risen from the dead.

Rufus, for his part, checked in briefly with Jiya and then delved right into the digital history archives to get some answers. “Lucy… You died.”

“Yeah, I’m picking up on that. When? What happened?”

“Um… You got away when your mom tried to abduct you, and you warned us before the bombs went off at Mason Industries, so we were able to back up the systems and get people out, but we still lost the building… We were… working with Flynn already? I guess he never got arrested... There were a few jumps before World War I, uh… Jess came back after one of those and Wyatt took some time off…” Rufus shook his head to clear it, as if he could just slide the discrepancies into place. Major changes in history were not nearly so weird as changes in recent personal events, as it turned out.

“Flynn was with us on the battlefront and in Darlington, but otherwise those went pretty much the same… Someone shot you while we were getting back into the Lifeboat after Citizen Kane. Stomach wound, tore through a couple of organs and nicked an artery. You bled out before we even jumped back.”

“That doesn’t make any sense. It would have to have been because of something we did in 1773. _We_. How can I be here if I died because of something I did?” She was finally able to tear her gaze away from Flynn, who was still looking at her like she had just saved him from drowning. It was kind of weird, in her opinion, but then so was having been dead. She could finally sympathize with Jessica’s half of that drama. “Wouldn’t I have… I don’t know, faded, or something? Entering a timeline where I don’t exist anymore?” Flynn’s hands had made their way to her shoulders, and his grip tightened at that supposition. She looked back to his face and had to grab onto his wrists to keep herself steady. He had an expression of… if she had to pick only one word, _terror_ would probably be the closest, but it was nowhere near sufficient. She ran her hand up his forearm as reassuringly as she could before prying his grip from her shoulder. “Hey, I think you and I need to talk,” she told him softly, not letting go of his hand. He swallowed and jerked a nod, having yet to say a word since she’d arrived. “I’ll be back in a little bit… Fill me in then?”

She didn’t wait for Rufus’ response before leading Flynn out of the control room, pulling him down a hallway into a small lounge. Well, as lounge-like as a rundown underground government facility can get. It had a couple of chairs, at any rate, and she gently pushed him down into one while she took the other. “Flynn,” she started, and she couldn’t help but notice how he tensed at his name. “What happened?”

“You heard Rufus. You died. You bled-” He hung his head in his hands. “You bled out. While I was holding you. I couldn’t save you.” He looked back up at her with red-rimmed eyes. “I didn’t save you.”

“Farther back.” Lucy swallowed down every bit of compassion she had, because damned if there wasn’t something she was missing here, and she wasn’t going to get answers quickly by being gentle. And she needed answers; Flynn didn’t look at her like that. Like _this_. Not before she went to 1773, anyway. He swallowed again.

“How far back?”

“You weren’t arrested?”

He shook his head.

“But you gave me the journal?”

A nod.

She hesitated, because she wasn’t sure why they’d still be chasing Rittenhouse around time if he’d given up the mothership like he’d said he would. “Were you able to save them?"

A small pause, a small smile, and then a faint “yes.”

“But the mothership…” She sighed. “Emma.”

Another nod. “We jumped back, killed the man that gave the order before he knew much more than the name Rittenhouse. I’m still not sure why she went along with that. He must not have been too important to them. When we got back, Lorena and Iris were alive. So I did what I said I’d do. Do you remember?” His eyes searched hers, begging her to have that memory still, to remember that he said he’d walk away. She nodded and he continued. “Emma took the mothership while I was checking on them. That was right around when the bombs at Mason Industries would have gone off, I think.” He looked down. “I found you, to tell you, and you nearly ripped my face off because you thought I’d betrayed you.” He gave a hoarse laugh. “Once we cleared up that… misunderstanding… we started working together.” What little amusement his face held disappeared altogether. “I’m sure Rufus can fill you in on our missions.”

“There was more than that, though? Between you and… her?” It didn’t feel right to say _between you and me_. That was, after all, a different Lucy. One who hadn’t inadvertently gotten Flynn arrested or been abducted by her own mother. This time there was such a long pause that she didn’t think he was going to answer until he finally flicked his eyes up to hers.

“A month and half after our first mission, we jumped back to a French battlefront and ran into your mother.” Lucy nodded. She remembered her one trip with her mother just fine. “You were- They grabbed you. They were going to bring you with them on the mothership. We’d already grabbed a few grenades, were going to destroy the mothership, or steal it and destroy the Lifeboat. When they got you onboard you tried to blow it, but you got a dud.” He took a deep, shuddering breath. “Lucy, you were going to die to take them out.” She nodded again. She had certainly planned on doing the same thing during her timeline. He shook his head at her, as though she didn’t understand. “No, you were going to-“ his hands shot up and he gently framed her face before she could really even blink. “You were going to _die_.” Oh. Maybe she hadn’t quite understood. He rubbed his thumb across her cheek a few times before dropping his hands again. “Emma threw you out of the mothership when she realized what you were trying to do. She would have killed you then, but your mother argued. She hadn’t quite given in when were finally able to get to you. They got away with Keynes.” He chuckled humorlessly. “I yelled at you all the way back to the Lifeboat and through the jump back here. I tried to keep going once we were back, but I must have said more than I meant to… I think at first you kissed me just to shut me up. It was effective.”

Flynn let out what she assumed was a string of expletives in Croatian and stood up. “It was weeks after that. Just weeks. Not even a full month that we had together before you-“ she heard sobs creeping into his voice before he cut himself off. That was more than a _we were casually sleeping together for a few weeks_ kind of sob.

“What were we to each other, Garcia?” she asked softly. She wasn’t even sure if she used his first name purposefully. Given that it surprised her a little bit, probably not.

He composed himself as best he could before looking at her. “I loved you. You… felt for me. I don’t know how deeply.”

They regarded each other in silence for what was _probably_ only minutes.

“We didn’t-“ Lucy couldn’t think of any good phrasing for it. “It wasn’t like that for me.”

There was that dark chuckle again. “So I gathered. I heard something about me being arrested?”

Lucy braced herself, not particularly wanting to rehash those first six weeks or so that were different. “When I brought you that flash drive, when you gave me the journal, I didn’t know that Agent Christopher was following me. They arrested you before you could save your family. You blamed me. I didn’t even _think_ to check for a tail, so maybe you were right.” She’d only recently come to that conclusion. Up until a month before, she hadn’t been able to understand why Flynn would ever have blamed her at all, since Agent Christopher had admitted they’d been following her. “I didn’t escape when my mom abducted me. Rittenhouse had me captive for six weeks, until Wyatt and Rufus found me on that battlefront. I didn’t know they were there until Wyatt caught me stealing grenades. I was going to blow up the lifeboat with my mother and me in it, if that’s what it took.” Flynn flinched at that. Apparently, he _really_ didn’t like thinking about her dying. Given that he’d actually _seen_ her die, she supposed that was understandable. She continued laying out her timeline as matter-of-factly as possible. “They’d only just gotten the Lifeboat up and running, since they didn’t have more than a few seconds of warning on the bombs, so we didn’t know about any of their earlier jumps until shortly before Darlington. You gave us intel for Darlington, and then Citizen Kane. When we were back in Hollywood, the prison you were in wasn’t in use yet. We hid a package behind a brick in what would be your cell, and you used it in the present to break out. Jess came back after that; Rittenhouse made a trip specifically to prevent her death; we never found out why. Your first mission with me and Rufus was to the Salem witch trials. My mom tried to have me and Ben Franklin’s mother hanged. You stopped it…” Flynn’s looked so sad by this point that she made sure to emphasize the next few words. “You saved me… We turned the Salem Witch Trials into the Salem Witch Revolts. You’ve been a fairly regular part of missions since then… That was nearly six months ago for me.”

If the progression of time was the same, that meant she had been dead in his timeline for about six months. She’d been dead in his timeline the entire time he’d been a part of their team in hers.

“And you and I-“ he cut himself off, obviously already knowing the answer to that wasn’t what he’d want to hear.

“We’re friends, sort of.” Lucy picked at a thread on her dress. She wasn’t sure how to tell him that they hadn’t even been much more than trusted teammates until maybe two months ago, when they’d gotten stuck for a week in 1952, so she decided it was irrelevant unless he asked.

“You and Wyatt?” Her eyes shot up to him. He was leaning against the wall for support, not even pretending it was a part of his usual swagger, with his eyes closed, obviously dreading the answer.

“No.” His eyes opened at that. “We might have been, but he’s been with Jessica since we found out she didn’t die.” He nodded.

“It was the same here, I think.” Lucy recognized his expression, that sad _I know I was your second choice_ that she’d worn herself a time or two (mostly in high school on the rare occasion she was invited to a dance). It was odd to see it on the overly confident, frequently arrogant, Garcia Flynn. She got up and closed the short distance between them slowly.

“Hey-” she made sure he was looking at her. “Hey, I don’t know how different your Lucy was from me, but if we were even a little alike… I don’t settle for anyone just to be with someone. She wouldn’t have been with you just because she couldn’t be with Wyatt. You know that, right?” He maintained eye contact with her, which she considered progress, but he didn’t reply. “Please tell me you at least know that much.” He regarded her in silence for a moment before giving her a short nod, presumably after deciding she was sincere.

She was devastated for him, that he’d never known how his Lucy had felt about him. He so obviously loved her, she’d be able to tell that even if he hadn’t said as much, but this alternate her hadn’t been able to say the same. That didn’t necessarily mean that she _didn’t_ love him; Lucy was all too aware that she wouldn’t have been able to vocalize that feeling even if it was there. She wasn’t in the best place emotionally since losing Amy, and it had only gotten worse after learning her mother was Rittenhouse. For all she knew, his Lucy had been head over heels for him. It about killed her that she couldn’t tell him exactly what he had meant to alternate-Lucy. AlternaLucy? Lucernate? She shook her head to clear it. Referring to herself in the third person, even a different self, was just confusing her.

After another moment of looking at each other, she spoke softly. “I should get back out there... Learn what else is different…” She tried to set a hand on his arm, but he flinched away. “Are you coming?” Flynn cleared his throat.

“I’ll be there in a minute.”

Lucy let Rufus and Jiya get her up to speed in the control room. Aside from her death and Wyatt reuniting with Jess a bit earlier, everything else seemed to have gone similarly. The missions were more or less the same, just with Flynn acting as their historian. He was even more knowledgeable about the past than she’d noticed in her timeline, apparently.

The man in question made his way back to them maybe ten minutes after she’d left him to his thoughts. Watching him try to hide the longing in his eyes, she knew it would probably be a long time, if ever, before he could look at her without first seeing the Lucy he’d loved. She also knew she hoped it was sooner, rather than later, because she was just realizing that, not only had his Lucy probably loved him too, but she’d been headed the same way ever since he spent their entire last day in 1952 trying to make her laugh instead of worry after he’d been shot.

_Shit, I’m going to fall for him, aren’t I?_


	2. A Dream

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We didn't get nearly enough Flynn in the last episode, much less Garcy, so I made some more...

Lucy was right when she thought Flynn wouldn’t be able to look at her. Oh, he managed well enough on missions, once she was back on the roster, but he went out of his way to avoid her in their free time. It would have been amusing (and it was for Rufus), given the lack of places to escape to in the bunker, but it just made her sad. This Flynn was more integrated into the team than hers had been, but he was still much closer to the edge than the middle. She didn’t like that he was pulling away from everyone else just because of her. So she took to mostly staying in her bunk or the control room in between missions. Wyatt and Rufus would occasionally keep her company, but it was Jiya that helped get her up-to-date on the less mission-related aspects of this timeline. She also got a more in-depth look at those missions than the quick run-through that Rufus had read out that first day.

While skimming through mission logs on one of her many visits to the control room, she learned that Flynn hadn’t gone to 1773 because he was recovering from massive blood loss after a stabbing (and she once again marveled at how quickly he bounced back from an injury; she certainly hadn’t picked up on him being wounded when she first got back). She had to deal with the near panic attack at the description of that incident; he’d been literally ounces away from death by the time they got him back to the present. She imagined that the Lifeboat had been a bitch to clean.

Lucy stayed that way, on the fringe, for about a month. For a month she watched Wyatt and Jess get back on the same page in their relationship. Things had been rockier for them in her timeline, so he had the pleasure of getting used to his wife not occasionally looking at him with contempt in her eyes. She watched Jiya and Rufus confirm that they were still on the same page. Really nothing had changed there; she figured those two would be solid in any timeline. Mason still oscillated between arrogant dick and kicked puppy, and Agent Christopher was… well… Agent Christopher.

She learned that she and Jess had actually been pretty good friends in this timeline during the brief period when they’d both been in the bunker, no doubt aided by the fact that she _hadn’t_ slept with Jess’ husband. (Jess had taken that bit of trivia like a champ when they told her. She just asked if it was going to happen again and was content when they both said no.) Due to that relationship, Jess helped as much as Jiya with the personal history aspect. Moreover, Jess walked her through the last six months of everyone else’s lives. It was odd, feeling like she was gossiping about people when she was really just learning what was common knowledge for everyone who hadn’t gone to 1773.

For a month all she did was catch up and go on missions, trying to stay out of Flynn’s way. Trying not to hurt him more than she did just by existing. It was when he could finally stand being in the same room as her that the dreams started.

They were so minor at first that she didn’t think much of them. She wrote them off as her subconscious trying to fill in the blanks. Flynn telling her a joke that she’d never heard in her timeline. Flynn brushing her hair back when she was almost asleep at the table. Then they got more detailed, more intense, which was when she went to Jiya and found that yes, these things happened in this timeline. Things that happened on a mission but weren’t considered relevant to the official report. Like, exactly what she said, word-for-word, that time she talked Flynn and Rufus out of a firing squad on one of those pre-Keynes trips (basically a three minute history ramble until the guy in charge got so confused and fed up that he just told them to go away and never come back). Things that escaped the general gossip dump, like what she and Flynn were wearing that time Jiya walked in on them kissing in the lounge ( _very_ little).

Then there were the more personal things that she didn’t dare ask Flynn about. The first time he told her he loved her. The first time they made love (she woke up Jiya with her heavy breathing after that one).

Assuming those were also true, she was experiencing AlternaLucy’s past. Specifically, her past with Flynn. As far as she and Jiya could tell, it was kind of the reverse of what happened to the pilot after their four-person trip. She convinced Jiya to keep it a secret from everyone but Rufus, and the three hypothesized that it was a consequence of Lucy traveling to a timeline where she didn’t technically exist anymore.

There were three weeks of Flynn-centric dreams before the more general ones started; how she escaped her mom, a night of wine and bad rom-coms with Jessica early on in their friendship. Getting shot and dying in Flynn’s arms was the last one before they started repeating, nearly five weeks after the first of Flynn.

She found herself doing things AlternaLucy would have done automatically, things that she wouldn’t have known to do in her own timeline. Mixing some cocoa into Jess’ coffee on those occasions that she fixed it (she and Jess weren’t on coffee-buddy terms just yet in her own timeline). Which mug not to use unless she wanted to incur Agent Christopher’s wrath. Calling Agent Christopher “Denise.” For the most part, people took it in stride. They’d had six months to forget the mannerisms Lucy had displayed in the less than ten weeks they’d all lived together. She’d get the occasional side-eye from Denise, but the agent never remarked on it.

It wasn’t until she adjusted the seatbelt in the Lifeboat before Flynn even got in that he said anything. It was one of those rare occasions that she and Jiya were ready before him, and he found the straps already lengthened to accommodate his taller frame when he got in his seat, despite Wyatt having been the last one to use it. He’d stared at her with wide eyes until they jumped, at which point he went back to being coolly professional.

Lucy tried to escape the inevitable conversation when they got back by making a beeline to change her clothes. Unfortunately, Flynn was waiting for her when she left the tiny room they used to store the miniscule wardrobe they’d scrounged together.

“How long have you remembered?” He grabbed her by the arm and led her to a little side nook. She shook his arm off; for all that he was being gentle, she wasn’t fond of the manhandling.

“It’s not like that,” she told him, a headache already forming.

“Then tell me what it’s like, Lucy, because it seems like you remember things that aren’t from your timeline.” Why’d she have to adjust that damn seatbelt?

“I’m not-“ she sighed. “It’s not remembering, exactly. I’ve been having dreams. From what Jiya and I can tell, they’re of your Lucy’s life during the time that it was different from mine.”

“And you didn’t think this was important to share?” How could he look so frustrated and adoring all at once?

“No! Because they still aren’t my memories, Flynn! I can tell the difference. I might know how long your seatbelt straps need to be, or that Mason secretly likes cheap beer, or how Jiya finds it grounding to have her back rubbed after one of her visions, but it’s not like I lived it. It’s like someone played really detailed home movies over and over again until I had them memorized.” Hearing her call him Flynn seemed to deflate him some. Another reminder that she wasn’t the same Lucy that he lost.

“How much do you know?” He was looking down now. She couldn’t tell if he wanted her to remember their time together or was dreading it.

“Most of it, I think.” She waited a beat to see if he would stop her. He didn’t. “I remember calling Wyatt to warn him that Rittenhouse was still a threat. I remember slapping you when you found me because I thought you gave Emma the mothership. I remember you pulling me out of the path of a bullet on our first mission together.” She took a breath and closed her eyes before taking a chance. “I remember how your hand spans my back when you’re holding me. How you like to kiss my neck when I’m curled up next to you. How you look at me and say my name differently when no one is watching, or you just don’t care, which is most of the time.” She opened her eyes to find him staring at her, speechless. “I remember what it’s like to kiss you, to make love to you, to have you hold me so tight at night I almost can’t breathe.” She felt a tear escape, and he raised his hand to her cheek and wiped it away with this thumb. “I remember what it’s like to love you.” She saw him lose his breath for a second, his own eyes watering. She grabbed his wrist and gently pulled his hand away from her. “But I didn’t get that. I can see it happen, can even feel it to some extent, but I didn’t get to actually _do_ any of it.” He closed his eyes and fell back against the wall. “This is why I didn’t say anything; I didn’t need to give you another reason to look at me and see _her._ I know that it hurts you. And I wish I could change that, but I can’t.” Lucy sighed again, running a hand through her hair. “It might be selfish, but I don’t want you seeing the person you lost every time you look at me. I want you to see _me_.” She couldn’t stop herself from running a hand down his arm before turning to leave.

He had her back up against the wall before she’d even made it out of the nook. He crowded her in, lips inches from hers, and just held her there, their breath mingling once she had caught hers. He watched her face, waiting for a sign, but she looked at him sadly. “No, Garcia. Not like this.” _Not when you’re thinking about her, how much I’m like her, how you maybe almost have her back. Not when I’m already falling for you and would give almost anything to see you look at_ me _that way._ He stepped back and let her go. She left already planning to go back to her routine of bunk-to-control-room. She spared a glance back and saw him leaning against the wall again, eyes closed, tears making their way down his cheeks. She managed to hold the rest of her own tears back until she made it to her bunk, where Jiya hugged her while she fell apart.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you everyone for the Kudos and comments! If a writer ever tells you they aren't like crack, that writer has no soul and should be regarded with extreme caution.


	3. A Nightmare?

He wasn’t falling for her. He wasn’t. He wasn’t falling for this woman who looked like his Lucy and was similar to his Lucy but so very different. She was still intelligent, and witty, and strong. But where she had once been all heart, she was now harder. Still compassionate, but now willing to do whatever was necessary, even if it meant hurting people. This wasn’t his Lucy. He knows that. He had to know that. He’d gotten past the guilt of loving his Lucy when she wasn’t Lorena. He couldn’t do that again when this woman wasn’t his Lucy. He couldn’t deal with feeling like he was replacing her with a different model.

Besides that, she didn’t love him. She said herself that they weren’t together in her time, and they’d been working together for months. Surely if she felt something they would have fallen together in that time. He had certainly cared for her before he lost the mothership, so it couldn’t have been him (or at least a lack of feelings on his side) holding them back.

But sometimes he acted like his Lucy. He saw how she shut herself away, sacrificing time with her chosen family so that he wouldn’t have to. He saw how she would laugh with Jessica when Wyatt did something stupid, how she’d tease Rufus and Jiya when they were being even more saccharine than usual.

Then it was more. She suddenly poured cheap bear into a glass for Mason instead of handing him a bottle of some IPA. She’d make Jess coffee those mornings it was harder for her to be in the bunker and know the perfect amount of cocoa to add. She started calling Agent Christopher by her first name and stopped tripping over that one crack in the control room. It was all stuff that she could have picked up on her own in the month or so since she’d been there.

But then there was the seatbelt. That was something his Lucy had done only after they were together. She’d actually sat and studied it to memorize the proper length. When he’d caught her at it, she’d tried to pass it off as being efficient; they could get on their way a whole five seconds sooner if he didn’t need to mess with his belt. Of course, she didn’t do the same for Wyatt or either of their pilots, so she’d eventually had to admit with an embarrassed laugh that she was just trying to do something nice for him and did he really have to make such a big deal out of it? This Lucy hadn’t done that. She hadn’t spent hours (as far as he knew) practicing getting the length right on the first try. And yet he still climbed into the Lifeboat after one of Wyatt’s missions and found the seatbelt exactly how he needed it.

He thought maybe he was getting his Lucy back. Maybe the universe was correcting its mistake, giving her back the memories that she should have had, instead of ones from some alternate timeline where they couldn’t even get their shit together. Then she had to go and trample that hope. God, did she have to do it like that, though? Couldn’t she just say that they were dreams? Did she have to mention kissing him, holding him, _loving_ him? Did she have to tell him, in her roundabout way, that his Lucy had felt the way that he’d hoped?

Did she have to walk away?


	4. A Distinction

Three weeks. That’s how long she stayed away from him. Three weeks of not talking to her except for on missions. Three weeks to figure out how much of what he was feeling was for her, and how much was for the old Lucy. No, not the _old_ Lucy. _His_ Lucy. His Lucy. And he’d be damned if he said it wasn’t difficult. _Who was he kidding? He was damned no matter what_. He was getting better at separating the two, at thinking of Lucy as her own person, rather than just some not-quite-replacement of the one he had known. Whenever the thought crossed his mind that maybe she _was_ the same, just with an extra six months of experiences, he stamped it out quickly. It was irrelevant, really.

It was on a mission that the final distinction between the two Lucys appeared. His Lucy had trouble pulling the trigger. Sure, she’d shot Jesse James, but he was already past his time and had killed people before theirs. She wouldn’t be able to pull the trigger on someone history didn’t already know as dead. Or, at least, she would have hesitated until it was just short of too late. She’d gotten better about not arguing with him (or Wyatt) when they decided to shoot someone, but she still couldn’t do it herself. Not easily.

When they encountered Rittenhouse agents in 1967, Lucy had said “try to keep one for questioning,” proceeded to knock her mother out with an encyclopedia to the head (how appropriate), and then shot Emma before the enemy pilot could shoot Rufus. Emma had taken the hit in the shoulder but, judging by Lucy’s creative cursing and attempt to get another shot in, the historian had been aiming for her heart. (He’d have to work with her in their rundown range when they got back.) They’d unfortunately lost their chance at both Emma and Carol due to Rittenhouse’s extensive cover fire, some of which made it dangerously close to his face, but he still got something very important out of that trip: he no longer thought of Lucy as anyone but her own person. He could stop hoping this Lucy would turn into the Lucy that had died and start letting her go. He wasn’t sure whether or not he was okay with that.

When he, Lucy, and Rufus exited the Lifeboat, Jess announced that she was making dinner. Family-style, attendance was mandatory, no exceptions, be in the kitchen in an hour. Lucy glanced at him quickly- they hadn’t eaten in the same room in nearly a month- then mumbled her assent and shuffled off to her bunk to write up her report for Agent Christopher. Jess caught the quick look and managed a half a second before decreeing that Flynn would be helping. He raised a brow, but followed her to the kitchen after giving a perfunctory verbal report.

Apparently “helping” meant sitting around with a beer and being interrogated while occasionally handing her a kitchen utensil.

“So… You two still haven’t gotten your shit together, huh?” Jess folded her arms and leaned back against a counter while watching him. He didn’t bother responding to a question with such an obvious answer, just took another swallow of his beer. “You’re both driving us all insane, you know. I mean, sometimes you were nauseatingly sweet- or uncomfortably smoldering- when you were together, but that was better than this… rift.”

“She’s not the same Lucy.” He studied the beer label a little more intensely than it warranted.

“I get it, she’s different. Wyatt’s a little different, too. But they’ve got, what? Eight or nine months of different memories than we do? She’s still Lucy, just... a Lucy who’s been alive a bit longer. Whisk.”

“Thank you for the clarification. Is this some of that infamous bartender wisdom? I hope you didn’t work for tips.” He tossed the whisk at her, along with a wooden spoon he anticipated she’d ask for next. She snatched both from the air and turned to a pot with some sort of sauce bubbling away on the stove.

“Don’t be an ass.” She threw a dishtowel back at him. “I’m helping.”

“I fail to see how.” He finished off his drink and rose from his seat, leaving his bottle on the table. He’d nearly made it out of the kitchen when Jess called out.

“She’s not just staying away for you.” He turned back and leaned against the wall.

“What do you mean?”

“At first, Lucy was holing up so that you’d stop doing that ridiculous 180 every time you ran into her, right? She kept herself away so that you wouldn’t have to see her. Now… I think she’s trying to keep herself from seeing you, too. Whatever you two do or don’t have going on, she’s affected. And she’s not going to say anything because she doesn’t want to impose on you mourning your dead girlfriend who happens to look exactly like her.” She opened the oven when a timer went off and stuck a thermometer into something.

Flynn shook his head. “They aren’t the same person.”

“No shit.” Jess slammed the oven door shut more forcefully than was strictly necessary and added another half hour to the timer. “Maybe tell her you’ve figured that out. I’d like to get to know my friend again outside of that closet of a bunk. At the very least, I’d really like her to not be crying the next time I go visit.”

Flynn didn’t have a good retort planned for that, so he relied on the time tested “so, what are you making?”

“Chicken marinara. Go talk to your not-girlfriend. Dinner’s in half an hour.” She turned completely away from him, effectively dismissing him.

He was going to go against her suggestion, until he replayed what she said. _I’d really like her to not be crying…_ She’d been crying. That was… He’d known she wasn’t happy with how things were between them, but not to that extent. He did an about-face and ignored Jessica’s smirk as he walked past the kitchen on his way to Lucy’s room.

Jiya answered when he knocked, barely opening the door and blocking his view into the room as much as her considerably shorter frame would allow. “It’s not a good time, Flynn.” She shifted on her feet, clearly uncomfortable. “Weren’t you helping Jessica with dinner?”

“I need to talk to Lucy.” He was able to catch a glimpse of her, sitting on her bed, facing away from the door. Jiya wasn’t a very effective visual obstruction.

“Like I said, it’s not a good time.” He saw Lucy’s shoulders shake just a little. She was holding something in. Given Jess’ statement earlier and Jiya’s current protectiveness, he was willing to bet that something was tears.

“Like _I_ said, I need to talk to her.” He pushed past Jiya (who didn’t make a very effective roadblock, either) and crossed the tiny room so he was in front of Lucy. She turned her head so he couldn’t look her head-on, but he could see tear tracks on her cheek. “Jiya, would you please give us a minute?” He made an effort to be polite. Jiya looked at him uncertainly before laying a hand on Lucy’s back, accompanied by a questioning look. After Lucy gave her a small nod, Jiya looked at Flynn once more before leaving the room, pointedly leaving the door cracked a couple of inches.

As soon as they were alone, Flynn sunk onto his knees in front of Lucy, framing her face in his hands. She wouldn’t meet his gaze.

“I’m sorry.” He wasn’t even sure what, specifically, he was apologizing for. For needing time? For wishing he’d somehow gotten his love back? For not realizing that this whole thing was tearing her up, too? Probably mostly that last one. “I see you, Lucy.” He stroked her cheek with his thumb. “I see you for you.” That sat like that in silence for a minute before she would even look at him.

“An inch,” she said, voice raspy, when she finally met his gaze.

“What do you mean?”

“When they were covering Emma. A bullet came through the wall an inch above your head.” She shook her head, moved his hands off of her. “An _inch_. I could have- I could have lo-“ Her voice cracked and she curled in on herself, giving into the tears that she had been holding back since Jiya had opened the door. Probably even before that. Flynn was frozen for a moment. The thought of dying was nothing new. Almost dying was a near daily occurrence. That she would be _this_ upset about a close call (not even remotely the closest call he’d had, either)… He hesitated, but then sat next to her on the bed, gathering her into his arms.

“I’m here,” he murmured into her hair, barely restraining the urge to kiss her forehead as he might have with his Lucy. He held onto her as she cried into his shoulder. “I’m right here.”

After three weeks of separating the two Lucys in his mind, he’d also been able to sort out his feelings. Here, holding Lucy as she despaired over a might-have-been, he discovered that, like an _idiot_ , he was falling for this Lucy, too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel like AlternaJess would be low-key bros with Flynn after six months of bunker life. Not entirely sure why. Maybe because they're both kind of on the fringe?


	5. A Frustration

Falling in love with someone who hardly speaks to you even on missions is an interesting experience. Not difficult, just interesting. And frustrating. Mostly frustrating.

Lucy had thought that staying away from Flynn might put off the inevitable, at least until she was relatively certain that he wasn’t always seeing _his_ Lucy when he looked at her. She’d thought that not seeing him, not talking to him, not interacting with him in any personal way might stall the fall that she’d seen coming since she’d talked to him that first day. She was wrong. She should have known better. Flynn had always been one to express his affection through actions, not words. Even if they didn’t speak any more than was necessary, he still offered her a hand when she was climbing out of the Lifeboat at their destination (even if he dropped it like a hot coal afterwards). If someone made her feel even a little uncomfortable, he still scowled at them until they feared for their safety and left (or at least stopped doing whatever it was that made her uncomfortable).

They still ended up playing the part of husband and wife whenever it seemed “friends” or “colleagues” would be insufficient. And, unfortunately for her, he played that part pretty damn well. It was always the small gestures that convinced people they were married. A hand on her lower back to move her along. Soft, quick touches on her arm, as though making sure she was still there and real. Tucking her hair back when it fell in her face. It was always the small gestures that he didn’t seem to realize he was doing until they were already done, if even then.

It wasn’t just how he was with her, either. For someone who’d once been branded a terrorist, he could be remarkably gentle. They’d once come across a guy manhandling his date, and Flynn had spoken softly with her, offering them to escort her to the police station if she wanted to make a report, or home if she didn’t. This, of course, was after he’d done an impressive amount of damage with just two punches before the guy scurried off. In another time, she caught him playing Go Fish with some kids while they waited for the parents to get home. He’d glanced at her, just for a moment, but she’d been knocked back by the wistfulness that had shown through the happy mask he’d put on for the children. Lucy occasionally forgot that this Flynn had left his wife and child once he’d undone their deaths, but it hit her hard when he was so obviously thinking about Iris, about how he could be playing games with his little girl if he weren’t still fighting Rittenhouse. Or, she supposed, if he’d never fought Rittenhouse in the first place, since his whole reason for leaving was the things he’d done during his endeavor to bring them back.

So, yeah, nearly two months of minimal intentional interaction but monumental automatic affection, and she was completely gone. Then he had to go and almost die. Again. Even closer to dying than he usually got. One damn inch away from dying. Which was when she actually _realized_ that she’d fallen for him. Then he had to say that he finally saw her for her? Had to hold her while she wept over her realization and fear? Why did he need to make everything so much more difficult? Just because he saw her for her didn’t mean that he cared for her in the same way, after all.

Jiya knocked on the cracked door twenty minutes later, long after Lucy had stopped sobbing in favor of just appreciating being in Flynn’s arms and the feeling of his fingers running through her hair. Jiya stuck her head in and cleared her throat. “Uh… Jess said dinner is ready.”

Flynn’s hand stilled, much to Lucy’s displeasure. “We’ll be there in a minute.”

“Okay, but I think she was really serious about attendance being mandatory, and-“ Lucy could only imagine Flynn’s expression. “I’ll tell her you’re on your way.”

“Are you okay?” He smoothed her hair even as he pulled away. “Lucy?”

“Yeah. Thanks.” She wiped her eyes one last time and stood. She grabbed his hand as he walked past her towards the door. “Thanks,” she said again, hoping her expression would tell him more than she could right then.

He rubbed the back of her hand with his thumb as he nodded. “Of course.” He squeezed her hand once before letting go. “Come on; chicken marinara awaits.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, was anyone else a little bit slain by 2x06?


	6. An Uncertainty

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not 100% satisfied with this chapter, but I've already rewritten it twice and spent a week trying to edit it, so...
> 
> Potentially spoilery note about Jessica at the end.

Jessica's expression when Flynn and Lucy entered the mess hall (sorry, _dining room_ ) together could only be described as smug. Flynn pointedly ignored it as he took a seat at an industrial table that had been fancied up with a bed sheet working as a tablecloth. Lucy sat across from him at the only remaining available spot (no doubt by Jess' design). Wyatt looked from Lucy's still-red eyes to Flynn and his face got stormy until Jess leaned over and whispered something to him. He still shot a glare Flynn's way, but bit back whatever it was he'd suddenly wanted to say.

The conversation at dinner was surprisingly easy(-ish). The eight of them, as Denise had also agreed to stay for dinner, barely all fit at the table, so there was a good deal of knocking elbows. Somehow, this only led to laughter instead of the usual grumbling. Once or twice, Flynn caught Lucy looking at him with a small smile. More than a few times, he got to see her laugh, a sight that had mostly eluded him for weeks.

For once, conversation wasn't focused on how Rittenhouse was fucking up history and how they could maybe be proactive. What little mission talk there was remained limited to amusing anecdotes from their trips. Denise bragged about her kids. Jiya made everyone laugh with how, according to her visions, Rufus was going to totally faceplant over a completely normal sidewalk crack. Flynn thought he was the only one who noticed the somber look that overtook her face for a minute. Then he saw Lucy rest her hand on Jiya's back for a moment and, well _, of course_ she had noticed.

Once everyone had a post-dinner drink in hand, Jess roped Lucy into helping her clean up. Seeing her determined (and still kind of smug) expression, Flynn offered to help instead, but Jess waved him off with what he interpreted to be a wicked grin. He might have been reading too much into it. Eventually the two women joined the rest of the group in their little living area. Flynn was relieved that Lucy didn't look angry, just blushing a little. Jessica plopped herself on Wyatt's lap in his armchair and watched, obviously pleased, as Lucy tapped Flynn's legs until he moved them and she could share his couch. She curled her legs up under her, toes pointed at him, and held herself mostly to the opposite side, a few inches of space left between them. Judging by how she kept glancing over out of the side of her eye, she wasn't sure how okay things were between them.

About twenty minutes into the movie, Flynn threw caution to the wind and tugged on her foot until she was leaning against the armrest with her legs across his lap. He was rewarded with a quick quirk of her lips and an increase to the flush in her cheeks. He would have been hard-pressed at that point to say what movie he was supposed to be watching. Not quite ten minutes after _that_ , he'd given up all pretense of watching the movie, perfectly content to instead watch Lucy as she watched the movie. He was actually pretty sure she wasn't paying attention either, going off of her continued trying-to-be-stealthy glances. Another fifteen minutes and they were both just looking at each other, eyes soft. Flynn thought he heard something along the lines of "sickeningly sweet" whispered between Jess and Jiya, but he chose not to address it in favor of watching Lucy fall asleep. With half an hour of the movie left, he gently moved her legs so he could stand up, and then scooped her into his arms.

"I'll get her back to your room," he murmured to Jiya, who just nodded at him before turning back to the TV. Jess smirked, smugger than ever, and Wyatt glared. Flynn just rolled his eyes at the both of them and walked out with Lucy in his arms. When he reached the door to the room that she and Jiya shared, he was glad to find it still cracked. He nudged it open with his foot and slowly set Lucy down in her bed. He pulled a blanket over her and once again resisted the urge to kiss her forehead. Gaze-a-thon or not, he wasn't certain where they stood. So he just hoped that she'd be willing to have a _talk_ the next day, and went to his own room to spend most of the night planning out exactly what he'd say.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In my happy little world, Jessica isn't Rittenhouse. They brought her back in an attempt to fracture the team (whether because Wyatt left with her or was constantly defending her from speculation that she was Rittenhouse), but it was entirely without her knowledge and she has nothing to do with them. Assume this has been well-known for several months in both timelines.


	7. A Progression

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a short chapter today.

Dinner was surprisingly relaxed. Lucy had expected at least a little tension or unease between her and Flynn, but it wasn’t there at all. Well, it did get a _little_ bit awkward when he tried to keep her from helping Jess with cleanup, but the reason for that became apparent soon enough.

Doing the dishes took no time at all (thank you, industrial dishwasher), but Jess managed to block Lucy’s exit as she was grabbing a beer.

“So, am I to take it by you and Flynn walking in together that you got your shit sorted out?” Jess raised her eyebrows and crossed her arms, fortifying her stance in front of the exit.

“We’re… still working on it.” At Jessica’s unimpressed look, Lucy felt compelled to add “at the very least, I’m pretty sure we’ll stop trying to avoid each other.” Jess still didn’t look satisfied. “I promise.”

Jess sighed. “Well, that’s a start, at least.” A wicked smile crossed her face. “You really should get a move on, though. I have it on the very good authority of these echoing walls that the sex was- will be- fantastic.”

Lucy, recalling the memory-dreams that Jess still didn’t know about, blushed. _Oh, I know_. Jess, apparently satisfied by Lucy’s embarrassment that she’d meddled enough for the time being, let Lucy pass.

As they joined the others for movie night, Lucy realized that she’d have to either sit on the floor or break the unspoken rule about Flynn’s ownership of the couch. Just staying for the movie held up her promise that she’d stop avoiding him. But sitting on the floor would be uncomfortable, and she was so tired of not trying to get closer to him. She deliberated for the full second it took to cross from the doorway to Flynn’s couch. _The worst that can happen is he’ll tell me to find my own spot_. Well, no, the worst that could happen was that he’d start to pull away from her again, but she steadfastly refused to acknowledge that possibility. To her relief, he moved his legs immediately when she nudged at him. She curled up on the side of the couch, not wanting to push at any boundaries, and shot a glance his way every couple of minutes to make sure he hadn’t suddenly tensed up or something.

A little ways into the movie, he pulled on her foot. She startled before realizing what he wanted. Then she was more than happy to lay her legs across his lap. She made a valiant effort to watch the movie after that, but Flynn was, unknowingly, it seemed, continuously running a hand along her lower legs. Eventually she gave up and contented herself with returning the tender gaze he’d been aiming her way for the past few minutes. It was, in her opinion, a much more compelling sight, anyway. Lucy spared a thought that she _really_ hadn’t lied to Jessica. She and Flynn had gone from zero to… whatever speed this was in just a couple of hours.

Sitting like that, as close to being in Flynn’s lap as she dared, surrounded by her family, being looked at like _that_ by the man she loved, she felt warm and safe and cared for. Paired with the emotional tumult it was no wonder that she nodded off.

Of course, since the universe was, is, and always will be a bitch, happy dreams were off the table.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you haven't already, now would be a good time to read [How She Died](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14406372/chapters/33270393).


	8. An Aftermath

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The dream mentioned is chapter 1 of [How She Died](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14406372/chapters/33270393).

Once Lucy’s memory-dreams started to repeat, there didn’t seem to be much of a pattern to them. They weren’t in the same order as they were the first time around, some she’d had multiple times while others she hadn’t yet had again, and some nights she’d have only one and others she might have several. The only thing she’d really noticed was that the death dream recurred more often than any other.

It wasn’t a dream that Lucy enjoyed waking up from. Not because she wanted it to continue (really, who would want to keep dreaming of their death?), but because the emotional aftermath was usually overwhelming. She wouldn’t call it a nightmare, simply because fear (at least for herself) wasn’t one of those emotions. She would wake up with the residual heartbreak and fear for Flynn, but none for herself. Then she would usually drum up some more heartbreak thinking about how AlternaLucy had never let Flynn know how she felt. Then there was a small amount of guilt, because wasn’t she doing the same thing? She could just about smother the guilt with the reminder that she and Flynn weren’t together, and he’d never told her he loved her, either, so it _wasn’t_ the same thing. Some heartache usually followed that last bit.

As usual, there wasn’t going to be any falling back asleep after that dream, so she made her way as silently out of the room as she could, claiming a minor victory when she didn’t wake up Jiya. Following her post-death-dream routine, she padded down the hall to the kitchen. More specifically, she made her way to the rocky road ice cream she had stashed at the back of the freezer. It might not qualify as a nightmare, but the dream still merited chocolate.

She was just getting a bowl and spoon out when she heard a small noise from their TV lounge. Guessing who else might be having a bout of insomnia, she put the bowl back and grabbed a second spoon, and then a couple of beers, before grabbing the quart carton of ice cream and moving into the lounge. She set her cargo on the coffee table in front of the couch and offered Flynn a beer, then a spoon.

“Can’t sleep?” She noticed bags under his eyes that hadn’t been there just a few hours earlier. She shoveled a large spoonful of rocky road into her mouth while she waited, tilting the carton towards him in invitation. He hesitated before taking a (much smaller) scoop of his own. “Bad dreams?” He washed the ice cream down with some beer before giving her a stiff nod.

“We should have t-shirts made,” Lucy told him before going in for more ice cream. She set the carton on the table for a second so she could open her beer without risking a spill, and Flynn swiped it for another bite before she could pick it back up. “Hey!” He tilted the carton back towards her at her protest, but kept a firm grip on it. She sighed and made do with once again taking a large scoop that would last her a few bites.

“Want to talk about it?”

“I think we’d need something a little stronger than beer for that,” she replied wryly. Flynn appraised her for a moment and then nodded before handing her the ice cream, getting up from the couch, and leaving the room. He was gone long enough that she’d started to consider he wasn’t coming back when he appeared with a bottle of vodka and a couple of glasses. She figured he’d gone back to his room for the booze, which was the good stuff, simply because it _was_ the good stuff and it hadn’t been included in the after-dinner drinks that evening. He splashed some into the two glasses and traded her the carton of rocky road for one of them. He kept the carton tilted her way and she grabbed another, considerably more reasonably sized, spoonful.

"So, your dream?" Flynn pressed after Lucy had taken a decent gulp of her vodka. Lucy hesitated, not sure how much of this he'd want to hear. She sighed.

"I see her die." She internally grimaced at Flynn's slight recoil. "Or, I guess it's more that I _experience_ it." He visibly flinched at that.

"That's some nightmare." He downed his drink in one swallow and poured himself another, considerably fuller, one.

Lucy shook her head. "It's not a nightmare so much as a a bad memory." Assessing Flynn, she finished off her own drink quickly and went for a refill. "Lately it's been... More of a reminder, I guess."

"A reminder of what?" She shook her head and took another bite of ice cream. He took a deep breath, seemingly steeling himself. "Will you tell me about it?"

Lucy's eyebrows shot up her forehead. "Do you really want to hear it? You already know what happened." Flynn nodded jerkily.

"I need to know how she saw it, if she-" He broke off, unable to finish the thought. But Lucy understood. He needed to know if she'd blamed him.

She took a deep breath of her own and told him all of it, starting with "we're getting into the Lifeboat..." and ending with "my hand falls from your face and it all goes black." Flynn's eyes has been getting progressively more watery as she spoke. Once she finished, she hesitated only briefly before adding one last thing. "She loved you. She wouldn't say it, because she was afraid you'd think it was only because she was dying, that she didn't really mean it. But she loved you. So much."

Flynn's control broke and he began to weep in earnest. Lucy didn't try to tell him it was alright, or remind him _she_ was there. She just returned his favor from the evening before, holding him as he cried and running her hand through his hair over and over again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Flynn's nightmare ([chapter 2 of How She Died](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14406372/chapters/33270402)) will play a part in the next chapter.


	9. An Aftershock

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The nightmare referred to is [Chapter 2 of _How She Died_](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14406372/chapters/33270402).

Flynn woke up from his nightmare trembling. From experience, he knew that it wasn’t a good idea for him to sit alone in his room after this particular dream, so he pulled on a sweater and went in search of the mind-numbing effects of late night/early morning infomercials. Halfway through learning about some superior blender (and it’s also a juicer!), he heard someone rummaging in the kitchen and spared a thought as to which of the resident insomniacs it might be before deciding it didn’t matter.

He realized how wrong he was (which was very) when Lucy walked into the lounge carrying beer and a carton of rocky road that he was sure Denise had been searching high and low for after dinner. He waited for Lucy to see him and make some excuse to leave before he A: remembered that they’d hashed at least _that_ much of their relationship out, and B: noticed she had two beers and an extra spoon. He accepted a beer and some ice cream, then swiped the carton when she was distracted for a second, smiling a little as she protested.

When she said that she’d need “something stronger” to talk about her dream, he considered her for a moment before deciding that his was, in fact, an occasion worthy of his good vodka. Once she started talking, he was grateful for the booze for his own sake. Listening to Lucy describe her alternate self’s death was… less than easy, somehow made all the worse by the almost detached way she spoke of it.

Flynn managed, barely, to keep it together until the very end. He hit his breaking point when she told him that what he’d hoped was true; he’d been loved. He let Lucy hold him as he cried. He cried for everything he could have had with the other Lucy had her life not been cut short and everything he’d been missing out on since this one came into his life.

He composed himself relatively quickly and tried to divert Lucy's attention by once again asking "what is it meant to remind you?"

"What was your nightmare about?" she countered without so much as a heartbeat of hesitation. Flynn pulled away from her embrace in order to see her face properly. Obvious evasion notwithstanding, her expression suggested she cared beyond simple curiosity. He took a fortifying breath.

"You dying." Lucy nodded as though it was what she'd expected and gestured for him to continue. He picked up his neglected beer and drained it, needing _something,_ but not wanting to risk his clear-headedness for another glass of vodka so soon. He told her of his nightmare, which was the same story as hers, just from his perspective. How the nightmare continued past when she was gone, sometimes until after he'd washed her blood from his body, but usually just until he sat in his bunk, still in his bloody clothes, hands caked with red, for hours. Staring at his gun. Lucy, who already had a grip on his hand, squeezed tightly. He looked at her for the first time since he'd started and saw dismay in her eyes. "It's different now, sometimes," he admitted.

"How so?"

He paused for a moment. "Sometimes it's exactly how it happened; I watch her die in my arms." It seemed important to him that this was the first time, as far as he could remember, that he'd referred to “his Lucy” as “her” when talking to _this_ Lucy. He swallowed and continued. "Sometimes you have longer hair," he tucked a stray lock of hair behind her ear. "And you're wearing different clothes." He ran his hand down her arm, tugging on her sweatshirt cuff when he reached her wrist. "More and more often lately I watch _you_ die. In my arms. And I'm just as helpless."

Lucy squeezed his hand again and, after just a moment's hesitation, situated them so he was leaning back against the arm rest and she was sitting up against him, her back flush to his front. "I'm right here, Garcia," she whispered, and she let her head fall on his bicep as his arms encircled her.

He couldn't stop the impulse to press a kiss to her head this time, not that he cared to. They sat like that in silence for a few minutes, just taking comfort in each other's presence. When he felt himself start to nod off, he asked her once more what her dream was supposed to be reminding her. He wanted to know, damn it. She took so long to answer that he though she may have fallen asleep. He was more than halfway there himself when she finally murmured an answer.

"To not take too long."

He fell asleep on an uncomfortable, too short couch, but with Lucy in his arms and a small smile on his face.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Assuming I can figure out dialogue, next chapter will see some actual sass from our Sass Master, which I have been sorely neglecting.


	10. An Awakening

“If you’re going to hoard the ice cream, you could at least have the decency to not let it melt.”

Flynn was startled awake by Jessica’s complaint. Lucy stirred a bit in his arms, but just mumbled something unintelligible before burrowing even further into his embrace.

“Or the courtesy to clean up after yourself,” Jess finished, lifting the rocky road carton and swirling the soupy mess inside pointedly.

“I’m a bit preoccupied at the moment.” He raised his eyebrows and nodded slightly at Lucy, taking care not to wake her with the movement.

Jess sighed after a moment. “I’ll let it slide this one time.” At Flynn’s answering smirk, she reiterated “ _once_.” She went into the kitchen, presumably to toss the gooey no-longer-ice cream. Flynn used the short period of relative privacy to wake Lucy by gently running his finger across the bridge of her nose a few times. She grumbled again, but roused this time. After a few seconds to process that she wasn’t in her room, she pulled out of his arms to sit property on the couch. He missed her almost immediately. He watched as she blinked sleepily a few times and then tried to smooth her sleep-styled hair. It was adorable.

She offered him a shy, slightly embarrassed style. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to fall asleep on you. Especially not, you know, _literally_ on you.”

He gave her a full smile in return. “It’s all right, I enjoyed the company.” He stood before he could risk her feeling awkward. “Coffee?”

“Please,” she answered with a grateful look. Flynn allowed himself to run his hand along her shoulders as he walked by.

He crossed paths with Jessica on his way to the kitchen. "Constantly smug isn't a good look for you."

"You're kidding, right? It's my _best_ look."

When he returned to the lounge, he found Jess and Lucy talking about... something. He caught something about switching with Rufus before they noticed him and very conspicuously fell silent. Lucy held her hand out for her coffee, smiling another thank you when he handed it over. He managed not to be disappointed when she didn't lean back into him when he sat next to her with his own coffee. He spent some time listening to Jess catch Lucy up on the gossip she'd missed while she was holing up in her bunk over the past couple of weeks. Well, not really _listening_. It was more like 'half listening and half trying really hard to not be too obvious in not being able to take his eyes off Lucy.' He definitely failed when he saw a large scrape on her inner arm that he hadn't noticed the night before. His hand shot out, but he was gentle as he grabbed her forearm. He didn't bother asking the stupid question of where it came from (where else but the warehouse from the shootout?). Lucy took a quick look at her arm and put her hand over his in reassurance.

"Just caught a crate on my way down." A questioning noise escaped his throat. "I should probably learn how to tuck and roll if people are going to keep pushing me around," she joked lightly.

Flynn’s expression reflected just how little he appreciated the ‘joke.’

Lucy sighed. “I’ll ask Wyatt if we can start up training again.”

“Why Wyatt?” It stung a bit that she trusted Wyatt over him when it came to any part of ensuring her safety, even as the logical part of his brain supplied that she preferred to stay by Flynn’s side during missions.

She raised her eyebrows at him, a somewhat incredulous look gracing her face. “If you can honestly tell me you could take a swing at me, even at half strength, knowing that I might not get a block or dodge right, I’d be more than happy to ask you to train me.”

He had to admit she had a point there. He blanched at just the thought of trying to hit Lucy, even knowing it wouldn’t be real. He would almost certainly go too easy on her. “I’ll work with you on weapons, then,” he decided, satisfied when she agreed without protest or hesitation.

Jessica coughed to remind them of her presence. Innocent as their conversation was, somehow Lucy had ended up halfway in his lap, and as much as Jess seemed to enjoy playing matchmaker, she’d never been a huge fan of PDA that wasn’t hers. “Well, I seem to be surplus to requirements here. I think I’ll go wake my husband up for a workout of my own.” She wiggled her eyebrows at the both of them and grabbed her empty cereal bowl as she stood. “Let me know if you want help later, ‘kay?” she directed at Lucy, who only nodded.

Flynn managed to hold his curiosity a full three seconds after Jess had left the room. “Help with what?”

“Switching rooms with Rufus.” At his somewhat blank expression she helpfully added “before Boston, I was in the room he’s in now, but he and Jiya thought I maybe should be alone with… everything that was going on.”

Meaning that they didn’t want her to seclude herself even more than she already was. It was a testament to how distracted he’d been over the last couple of months that he hadn’t really registered the change. If he had in passing, he’d brushed it off as that was how things must have been for them in their timeline. He felt the slightest amount of guilt for a moment (he was the reason she’d been locking herself away, after all), before pleasure set in at the knowledge that she was confident enough in their change in circumstances to have her own space. Before she’d died, Lucy had frequently crashed on the couch (at least until she’d essentially moved in with him). He couldn’t hold back a smile when he realized that the oversized storage closet they’d turned into a room for Rufus was just around the corner from Flynn’s bunk, which would put Lucy quite a bit closer to him after the switch.

“I’d be happy to help with that move, too.” He brushed a hand through her hair one last time before lifting her fully off of him so he could stand. As much as he wanted to do nothing but curl up with Lucy for the rest of the day, everyone else would be up and about soon. “Ready to start the day?”

She took his extended hand and let him pull her to her feet with a smile and an exaggerated sigh. “If we must.”


	11. A Move

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> With even less angst than the last chapter!

Lucy suggested Flynn take the bathroom to shower first. She took the opportunity to rope Jiya into helping her gather her things for the move (not that the younger woman needed much prodding). It didn’t take them long to get everything together. She hadn’t accumulated much since her undeath, and it wasn’t like she was moving far. The most effort went into boxing her books for transport. She happily took advantage of Flynn’s offer to help her move by shoving one of the heavier boxes at him as he happened to walk by. Once Jess and Wyatt emerged from their room (rather rumpled), Lucy enlisted them to help Rufus pack up, since she hadn’t bothered giving him a heads up before pounding on his door with a bundle of her clothes in hand.

Rufus apparently hadn’t ever gotten the memo about being up and about for the day. He answered her (and then Flynn’s) incessant knocking with bleary eyes and an uncomprehending expression. He took in the group in front of his door. “What’s going on?”

“You’re moving back in with your girlfriend,” Lucy responded in a no-nonsense tone. She shot him a smile as she brushed past him and dumped her close on the rickety table. “The books can go under here for now,” she directed Flynn, indicating the floor under the table.

“Ma’am, yes ma’am.” He gave her a mocking salute after setting the box down.

“You offered,” she replied with an unapologetic shrug. She clapped a still dumbfounded Rufus on the back on her way out. “Jess and Wyatt will help you with your stuff.”

“We will?” Wyatt asked. “Not saying I won’t, I just don’t remember anyone asking,” he backpedaled.

Lucy nodded. “Jess volunteered this morning.”

“How does that mean that I-“

“Your wife volunteered,” Flynn cut him off, using that _you really are an idiot_ tone, and Lucy had to grin as she walked away. “You’d think he’d have that figured out by now,” Flynn told her as he caught up.

“You’d think,” she agreed, smile still in place as she looked up at him. When they got back to her (for not much longer) room, she designated him the book box carrier. Mostly because she hadn’t bothered using a bunch of smaller, more manageable boxes, instead utilizing a few larger crates. She could lift them (barely), but no way was she walking them any distance if she had any other options. Going by Flynn’s wry look, he’d deduced just that. She hid another smile and nudged a box with her toe, raising an expectant brow. He let a chuckle escape, _almost_ disguised as a huff, but obediently took the next crate. Lucy and Jiya both stuck to the clothing and various odds and ends she’d either picked up on missions or asked Denise to bring from the outside to make her bunk seem even the slightest bit homey. There weren’t many of those.

Even factoring in Rufus’ packing time, it took hardly half an hour to get them completely switched. Once they had, Jiya and Rufus happily shut themselves away, theoretically for get Rufus’ stuff settled back in, but Lucy would be in no way surprised if they were rechristening their room. Jess and Wyatt took off to do their own things, and Flynn leaned against her doorway with an amused expression as she took in the mess that was her new/old bunk. He let out a chuckle when she struggled to lift one of the book crates. She shot him a narrow-eyed look.

“Don’t look at me like that. You wanted them on the ground.”

Fair enough. She let her mild glare fade, expression shifting to playful. “You said you’d help… Job’s not done yet.”

He quirked a brow at her. “Jess offered, too.”

“She won’t know where everything should go.” The implication being that he knew her well enough to figure it out.

He did that unfair thing with his tongue that made her tingle. With a nod, he pushed away from the doorway and picked up one of the crates. Bypassing the table, which might very well have given out under the weight of the box, he set it on her bed and grabbed the top couple of books. Flynn already knew her organizational system, so they were able to work quickly. He teased her lightly any time he came across one of her more mindless fictions, and she futilely tried to shove him a couple of times before just giving in to the good-natured ribbing with eye rolls and hidden grins.

Once they’d finished filling the bookshelves, he helped her with her souvenirs and trinkets, somehow knowing where she wanted to put most of them without her direction. Or maybe she just agreed with his choices after he made them. Either way, she only had to move a couple of the things that he set down. Interestingly enough, those were the things she’d taken from missions just to have something from that time period. The things that mattered to her, that reminded her of something more than “I’ve been to [year] and know how [event] happened,” the ones she associated with a specific person or place they’d come across… Those he always put in the perfect places. Some would evoke a small smile, a quick quirk of the lips. Others, a more somber look. Lucy couldn’t see his face when he reached the scrap of lace from her Tea Party dress, but he ran a thumb over it before setting it next to her biographies to await use as a bookmark.

It was odd to be doing something so entirely mundane and domestic with Flynn. But it also felt _right_. Like they were meant to wake up together and make each other coffee before performing menial household tasks. They were supposed to read in comfortable silence, occasionally stealing glances at each other over the pages. They were meant to have the quiet moments, not just the frantic on-mission or relieved post-mission ones.

The feeling of contentment took her awhile to place, having no frame of reference. She knew from her dreams that AlternaLucy’d had her sweet moments with Flynn, but she’d never had _this_. She’d never had the chance. Presuming she didn’t die early, Lucy did, and she intended to make the most of it. Soon. Once they were a bit father out from the avoiding-each-other phase. Even though they’d (literally) been sleeping together just hours earlier. Damn it, why did they both have to be so all-or-nothing? About this, at least, they had no chill whatsoever.

While Lucy contemplated this new heavy but heart-warming thought, Flynn managed to finish stowing away her knickknacks, leaving only the clothes on the bed. “I suppose you want help with that, too?” he asked with a joking undertone that made her smile.

“I think I’ll manage. Right now, I need a shower.”

“Well, I wasn’t going to say anything, but…” Lucy smacked his arm with a grin. She stopped him when he headed for the door. Even on her tip-toes, he still had to lean down a bit (which he did automatically) so she could kiss his cheek (which she did with minimal thought until after the fact).

“Thank you for helping,” she told him softly. He swallowed and nodded.

“Any time,” he replied just as softly before he left.

Lucy’s thoughts continuously slid to Flynn as she gathered her shower things, until she finally berated herself.

_No chill whatsoever._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I mentioned it on my tumblr (@jocillyria-fics), but I want to write a mission-based chapter and I barely passed my history classes way back in high school. If you have any suggestions on a where/when they might need to ruin Rittenhouse's day, let me know!


End file.
